Looking for input on VoIP systems

Hi,

I work at an indoor agricultural farm as the IT technician. I've been tasked with setting up a VoIP system for mostly internal use with outbound calls required as well. All the cabling has been run, and at most, we're going to have 11 phones. Our management will have a dedicated line, and everyone else will probably split a line or two.

We are looking into a business account with the local ISP for the phone lines, but they offer their own service called SmartVoice that seems far too expensive for what it is. They don't support VoIP and their support will end at the modem.

I'll likely have a dedicated box for this. Looking into FreePBX and Asterisk, but I'm concerned about the learning curve of Asterisk. I'm not much of a coder, honestly. I can manage shell scripting and bash, some Javascript, and can do the basics in C, but that's about it. We'd need a system that can connect and use the local number(s) we'll have leased, as well as handle internal calling, robust enough to have call-forwarding/recording/differentiated tiers for management vs everyone else, and it needs to be reliable.

Also, looked at Asterisk phones and Cisco phones but would love to see what suggestions people have for phone models. PoE is crucial, as well as the ability to handle lines and have good voice quality. Balance the pros against the price, as ever, but we're looking for something reliable that won't fail on us in two years or reach end-of-life within the next while.

Any suggestions or advice? Thanks so much for the help ^{_^}